Gustavo de Arístegui,
July 28, 2026
I. BRIEF INTRODUCTION
There are days when current events seem to take shape on their own, and this is one of them. Two wars that until a week ago were proceeding along parallel tracks—the Gulf War and the war in Ukraine—have just converged, and they have done so in the most unexpected and revealing place: the Caspian Sea. Kyiv has attacked an Iranian vessel that, according to its own embassy in Israel, was transporting drones and military components to Russia. Tehran is promising retaliation. The fiction of isolated conflicts is over: there is only one theater, and the one who has been fueling it for years has a name and surname.
Meanwhile, Washington and Tehran are maintaining a third day without exchanging fire, and the mediators from Doha and Islamabad are speaking of progress. It’s important not to confuse a tactical pause with peace. The Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman himself, with commendable candor, reminded everyone yesterday that the situation in the Strait of Hormuz has not changed and that it remains closed. And the regime’s proxy militias have fired on Abqaiq, on the pipeline that carries Saudi crude to Yanbu, on Riyadh, on Jordan, and on the Israeli border. All of this, I reiterate, during the ceasefire.
Meanwhile, a crucial game is being played out in Washington today: Volodymyr Zelensky enters the Oval Office as the Senate votes on the sanctions package that was Senator Lindsey Graham’s final act of public service. And in Europe, two images encapsulate our contemporary tragedy: a British Prime Minister making his foreign policy debut on the deck of HMS Queen Elizabeth, and a sixth-generation fighter jet program—worth one hundred billion euros—reduced to rubble by a workshare dispute between two companies. We close with Kaduna, where thirty people were murdered in the early hours of Sunday morning, seemingly unnoticed by the world.
II. THE MOST IMPORTANT NEWS OF THE LAST 24 HOURS
1. Abqaiq, again: Tehran delegates attack Saudi energy heartland during ceasefire
Facts
The Saudi Ministry of Defense announced on Monday, July 27, that its air defense systems intercepted and destroyed several drones targeting oil facilities in the Eastern Province and the Riyadh region. Military spokesman Major General Turki al-Maliki stated that the drones originated from Iraqi territory and attributed the attack to Iranian-affiliated terrorist militias. Riyadh condemned the actions as terrorist, demanded that the Iraqi government prevent its territory from being used as a launching pad, and expressly reserved the right to respond at the appropriate time and place. Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi subsequently ordered an investigation.
In a parallel incident, and in a claim that Riyadh does not accept, Houthi military spokesman Brigadier General Yahya Sari asserted that drones had struck key crude oil supply and transport points connecting eastern Saudi Arabia to the Red Sea port of Yanbu, alleging Saudi incursions into Yemeni airspace. Images circulating on social media and thermal imaging from NASA’s FIRMS system pointed to the Abqaiq processing plant, owned by Aramco. This episode is part of a spiral that began on July 20, when the Houthis declared a maritime blockade against Saudi Arabia; three days later, they claimed missile and drone attacks against two Saudi oil tankers in the Red Sea, and Riyadh responded with airstrikes on Hodeida province. Saudi Arabia has begun diverting exports to the Suez Canal.
On the same day, the Israel Defense Forces shot down two drones over the Jordanian border near the Dead Sea; the Royal Jordanian Air Force downed two more; and Iraqi security sources reported a series of drone attacks against camps of the Iranian-backed Kurdish opposition in the north of the country. Jordan, Qatar, and Egypt condemned the attacks and called for restraint.
Implications
Let’s be blunt: during a lull in hostilities that Tehran itself presents as a gesture of goodwill, its delegates simultaneously attacked Saudi Arabia’s energy heartland from Iraq and Yemen. This is precisely the power architecture we have been describing for years: a terrorist state that reserves negotiation for its diplomats and violence for its proxies, so that it can always deny responsibility and always reap the rewards. The discrepancy between the Saudi version—drones originating from Iraq—and the Houthi claim is not a contradiction; it is the very design of the system, plausible deniability elevated to a state doctrine.
The chosen target is not accidental. Abqaiq is the largest crude oil processing complex on the planet and was already attacked in September 2019. Attacking it again, and doing so while the Strait of Hormuz remains closed and Bab el-Mandeb is under threat, is tantamount to signaling to the markets that Iran retains the capacity to strangle three bottlenecks simultaneously. This is the system of extortion over energy routes that we have been referring to, in these reports, as the geopolitics of tolls.
There is a third, perhaps even more serious, element. Baghdad has once again demonstrated that it does not control its own territory. A state that cannot prevent drones from being launched from its soil against a neighbor is not a sovereign state: it is a corridor. And the reactivation of the Saudi-Houthi front, after years of an expired but de facto respected truce, buries the Yemeni process that Riyadh had been sustaining with enormous patience and at considerable political cost.
Perspectives and scenarios
Most likely scenario (55%): A calibrated and verifiable Saudi reprisal against Houthi targets in Hodeida or al-Jawf, without entering Iraqi soil so as not to compromise Baghdad, and intense diplomatic pressure on al-Zaidi. Riyadh has learned that open escalation hurts it more than anyone else.
Risk scenario (30%): An impact that penetrates the air defenses and effectively damages Abqaiq’s processing capacity. A single serious malfunction would be enough to send the price of oil soaring wildly and cause the truce between Washington and Tehran to collapse within forty-eight hours.
Less likely but decisive scenario (15%): Riyadh releases evidence of the Iranian chain of command and formally requests US protection. This would be the moment when the civilian nuclear agreement between Washington and Riyadh—which we have wholeheartedly endorsed in this report—would reveal its true deterrent dimension.
2. Ahmad Vahidi: the man who really makes the decisions while diplomats negotiate in Doha
Facts
The United States and Iran completed their third consecutive night without exchanging fire on Monday. Two regional officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed to the Associated Press that mediators led by Qatar and Pakistan are working to rebuild the interim agreement that collapsed during the latest exchanges. US Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz told Fox News that President Trump is giving space to the negotiating process. Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei confirmed the exchange of messages through Islamabad and Doha, but accused Washington of destroying the groundwork for dialogue, maintaining that the situation in the Strait of Hormuz remains unchanged and closed.
Above this diplomatic choreography stands a man who doesn’t appear in the photographs: Major General Ahmad Vahidi, commander-in-chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) since March 1, 2026, following the death of his predecessor, Mohammad Pakpour, in the initial attacks of February 28. Vahidi was the first head of the Quds Force—Soleimani’s predecessor—, Minister of Defense under Ahmadinejad, Minister of the Interior under Raisi, and a member of the Expediency Discernment Council. He is subject to an Interpol Red Notice for his alleged involvement in the 1994 AMIA bombing in Buenos Aires. He led the internal security forces during the bloody crackdown on the 2022 protests. He had been appointed deputy commander of the IRGC on December 31, 2025, with the express mandate to prepare Iranian forces for confrontation. He was one of the main promoters of the appointment of Mojtaba Khamenei as Supreme Leader and, according to various sources, is blocking President Pezeshkian’s attempts to appoint a new intelligence minister.
Implications
Herein lies the crux of the matter, and it is important to state it clearly. The Doha negotiators—Gharibabadi, Araghchi, Ghalibaf—can sign whatever they wish; but Vahidi controls the ballistic missiles, the Gulf fast boats, and the network of proxy militias. This is precisely what we have been calling in these reports the decapitation paradox: the attacks of February 28th eliminated the visible leadership of the regime—Khamenei himself, Pakpour, Nasirzadeh, Mousavi, Shamkhani—and the result has not been a decapitated and docile regime, but rather one in which authority has migrated downwards and into the uniform. The architect has been killed, and the foreman has been promoted.
The practical consequence is grim. An agreement with Tehran is worth exactly what Vahidi decides it’s worth. And Vahidi is no pragmatist: he’s the man behind the AMIA bombing, the man responsible for the 2022 repression, the man who founded a school at the Supreme National Defense University designed to train the next generation of Iranian political leaders to emerge from the military. His project isn’t to negotiate the regime’s departure; it’s to definitively militarize its succession.
That such a figure is simultaneously managing the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, the Iraqi militias, and the Houthis, while the West debates whether or not to release the funds, speaks volumes about the lack of seriousness with which the aftermath has been handled. We warned about this from the very beginning: we applaud the attacks against the regime’s nuclear and military infrastructure, but we denounce the complete absence of a plan for what would come next. Vahidi is the consequence of that lack of foresight.
Perspectives and scenarios
Most likely scenario (50%): a partial and precarious interim agreement, with a supervised reopening of Hormuz and a gradual release of funds, which Vahidi will tolerate as long as it allows him to rebuild capabilities. A truce to rearm.
Alternative scenario (35%): breakdown of mediation due to an incident involving its delegates—Abqaiq, a ship, a US base—followed by a new wave of US attacks. This pattern has been repeating itself since February.
Internal rupture scenario (15%): an open fracture between Pezeshkian’s civilian apparatus and the IRGC command. This would be the best possible news for the Iranian people and the worst for those who believe that stability is a higher value than freedom.
3. Zelensky in the Oval Office and the Graham Bill in the Senate: the sanction that could change the equation
Facts
The Ukrainian president is meeting with Donald Trump at the White House today, Tuesday, July 28, at 9:30 a.m. Washington time, behind closed doors. At 11:00 a.m., the U.S. president is scheduled to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Both will then attend the funeral of Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, who died unexpectedly this month from a ruptured aorta. Zelensky is also scheduled to meet with senators in the afternoon, according to Reuters, citing two Senate aides.
On the same day, the Senate may vote on the sanctions package against Russia that Graham championed for months and negotiated during his last trip to Kyiv on July 10. The legislation would impose 100 percent tariffs on goods from the five largest buyers of Russian oil and gas, including China and India, and has dozens of sponsors from both parties. In a last-minute intervention, President Trump sought to include sanctions against Iran in the same bill; Zelensky, when asked about it, called it an excellent idea.
In the military sphere, both countries agreed earlier this month to jointly produce Patriot interceptors and are moving toward a joint drone manufacturing agreement. Ukraine will produce between six and seven million short-range attack drones this year; the Pentagon’s $1.1 billion program will have ordered just under 200,000 aircraft by February 2027.
Implications
The Graham Act is by far the most serious pressure tactic the West has employed since 2022, and it’s worth noting that it’s three years overdue. One hundred percent tariffs on major buyers of Russian hydrocarbons effectively force Beijing and New Delhi to choose. Therein lies its strength and its risk: it’s a measure that punishes Moscow through intermediaries and, if poorly calibrated, could push India—an indispensable partner in containing Chinese expansionism—into an uncomfortable position. Washington should treat New Delhi with a delicacy it hasn’t always demonstrated.
The maneuver of including Iran in the same text is revealing of this White House’s method: intuitive, transactional, and hasty. It can work; it can also derail a vote painstakingly crafted over months. This is the difference between the foreign policy advised by Marco Rubio, which has achieved undeniable diplomatic successes in less than a year—Cambodia and Thailand, Gaza, Azerbaijan, and Armenia—and a foreign policy improvised on the fly. We trust, once again, that the system and the good sense of those surrounding the president will ultimately prevail.
The number of drones deserves special mention, because it encapsulates a military revolution that Europe refuses to confront. This year, Ukraine will manufacture thirty-five times more attack drones than the entire Pentagon program. The invaded, devastated, and bombed country has become the world’s leading power in unmanned warfare, and now it is the United States that will learn from Kyiv, not the other way around.
Perspectives and scenarios
Most likely scenario (55%): passage of the Graham Act with a broad bipartisan majority, with or without the Iranian amendment, and deferred or phased implementation allowing the White House to manage the timelines with China and India.
Blocking scenario (25%): Iran’s inclusion fractures the consensus and delays the vote, with the consequent symbolic cost on the day of its promoter’s funeral.
Strategic disruption scenario (20%): Beijing and New Delhi devise circumvention mechanisms—triangulation, payments in alternative currencies, a shadow fleet — that will render the law meaningless within six months. This is what has happened with almost all previous packages.
4. The Caspian: the two theaters of war converge and the fiction of watertight compartments collapses
Facts
On Saturday, July 25, Ukrainian forces attacked an Iranian vessel in the Caspian Sea. Ukraine’s ambassador to Israel, Yevgen Korniychuk, claimed the ship was transporting drones and military components from Iran to Russia. Tehran, which describes the vessel as a civilian cargo ship and has reported fatalities, has vowed retaliation against Kyiv. The two conflict zones, separated by approximately 2,500 kilometers, have now been formally linked.
Former US ambassador to Kazakhstan and Georgia, William Courtney, told Al Jazeera that by attacking Iranian ships, Kyiv is not only defending itself but also striking Washington’s number one enemy, which is unlikely to displease the administration. He added, however, that Ukraine has no interest in appearing too closely associated with an unpopular US war.
Implications
We have maintained for years in these reports that there are not two wars, but a single system of aggression with multiple fronts. The Caspian Sea has demonstrated this in the clearest possible way: the Shahed aircraft landing on Chernihiv and Kyiv carry Iranian bolts, and the one sending them is the same regime that closes the Strait of Hormuz and arms the Houthis. When someone claims that the war in Ukraine and the Gulf crisis are separate issues, they either haven’t read a cargo manifest or they refuse to read it.
Kyiv has also made a remarkably astute political move. By striking an Iranian asset, it presents itself to Washington not as a recipient of aid, but as an operational partner in the theater of power that is currently causing genuine concern in the White House. It is a way of saying, on the eve of a meeting in the Oval Office and a Senate vote, that Ukraine contributes, not just demands. In terms of the grammar of power, it is flawless.
The risk, of course, is retaliation. Iran has the capacity to act against Ukrainian interests in third countries, and its track record—from Buenos Aires to Burgas—does not inspire optimism. That the commander-in-chief of the IRGC is precisely the man wanted by Interpol in connection with the AMIA bombing is a coincidence that no serious analyst should overlook.
Perspectives and scenarios
Most likely scenario (50%): asymmetric and denied Iranian retaliation —cyberattack, logistical sabotage, action against Ukrainian personnel or interests outside of Ukraine— without official claim.
Containment scenario (30%): Moscow, which needs the Caspian corridor operational, pressures Tehran not to internationalize the incident and seeks alternative routes through the Caucasus or Central Asia.
Escalation scenario (20%): Ukraine repeats the operation and turns the Caspian into a stable interdiction front. This would be a qualitative change, with direct consequences for Baku, Astana, and Ashgabat.
5. Portsmouth and the ashes of SCAF: Europe, between symbolic gesture and industrial impotence
Facts
Volodymyr Zelensky met on Monday with the new British Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, at the Portsmouth naval base aboard the aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth. It was Burnham’s first meeting with a foreign head of state or government since taking office a week ago. He is the fifth British prime minister to deal with Zelensky since the full-scale invasion of February 2022, and comes to power after nine years as mayor of Greater Manchester and with little international experience. The two leaders visited more than 200 Ukrainian military personnel who have spent three weeks in the UK participating in the Sea Breeze maritime security and mine clearance exercise focused on the Black Sea. London announced the transfer to Ukraine of the intellectual property rights to the Stone Cloak electronic warfare system, which allows drones to disable Russian air defense radars, so that Kyiv can mass-produce it domestically. Burnham stated that British support is unwavering and that the two had spoken at length about Ukraine’s need for interceptors against Russian ballistic missiles.
At the other end of the continent, the situation is very different. The FCAS/SCAF program—the Future Combat Air System, valued at around one hundred billion euros and launched by Macron and Merkel in 2017, with Spain joining in 2019—was formally terminated in its manned fighter component on June 8, 2026, when Chancellor Friedrich Merz announced it at the opening of the ILA air show in Berlin, the same venue where the partnership had been presented in 2018. He had conveyed the decision to Macron on June 6, on the sidelines of the EU-Western Balkans summit in Montenegro, after the industrial mediation initiated following the Brussels dinner on March 18 concluded on April 18 that a joint manned fighter was no longer viable. No prototype was ever built. No demonstrator ever flew.
Since then, fragmentation has accelerated. Airbus and seven German companies have formed the Team Gen 6 alliance to explore a German-led sixth-generation fighter. Dassault, in its presentation of half-year results on July 23, announced that it is negotiating with the French government to launch a national or cooperative alternative; its president, Éric Trappier, set the goal of a demonstrator based on French requirements capable of flying in 2031 or 2032, and specified that it will not return to a scheme in which Dassault is the prime contractor without sufficient industrial control. Regarding combat cloud and unmanned aerial vehicles, only the intention to continue cooperating has survived, the allocation of which was to be discussed at the Franco-German cabinet meeting on July 17. Spain, meanwhile, remains a spectator.
Implications
It must be said with all the bluntness the matter deserves: Europe has just repeated, forty-one years later, the exact same mistake as in 1985, when France abandoned the program for the future European fighter jet to develop the Rafale, while the others built the Eurofighter. That division cost us two aircraft where there should have been one, two industrial chains, two logistical systems, and a fraction of our negotiating power. Now we are heading towards having three: the British-Italian-Japanese GCAP, the French, and the German. And all this at a time when Russia is waging war on our continent and when Washington is demanding, quite rightly, that we assume our own defense.
The fact that the cause was a dispute over industrial work share between two companies makes the failure worse than a strategic error: it makes it a humiliation. Nine years of political mediation were not enough for two European companies to agree on who builds what. This is the exact ailment of our ruling class: the inability to subordinate corporate interests and short-term electoral gains to the strategic interests of an entire continent.
The Spanish case is particularly egregious and deserves to be addressed bluntly. Spain joined the program in 2019, contributed public funds, and today no one even knows if Indra will retain a relevant role in the surviving structure. Our irrelevance is not a matter of bad luck: it is the direct consequence of years of defense spending below our commitments, a rudderless foreign policy, and a political class that treats national security as a budgetary burden. We already stated this when Madrid was excluded from the European directory established in Berlin: it was a self-inflicted wound, and this one is too.
The contrast with Portsmouth is instructive. London, with a newly appointed prime minister lacking international experience, has done something concrete in its first week: hand over the intellectual property of an electronic warfare system so that the ally can manufacture it itself. This isn’t just a statement; it’s transferred capability. It remains a modest gesture compared to the magnitude of the challenge, but at least it’s a gesture that produces some resistance.
Perspectives and scenarios
Most likely scenario (60%): consolidation of three separate European programs —GCAP, French and German—, with the combat cloud as the only remaining Franco-German cooperation and Spain forced to choose sides before the end of the year.
Partial recomposition scenario (25%): Berlin formally requests membership in the GCAP. London has shown some willingness; Tokyo, much less. This would be the least bad solution.
Surrender scenario (15%): one or more European partners end up buying the F-35 in its upgraded version, which would bury European aerospace industrial autonomy for a generation. Spain has ruled out this option for now; it should also rule it out in its budget, not just in its speeches.
6. Kaduna: Thirty killed in the early hours of Sunday and the deafening silence of the West
Facts
Gunmen stormed the village of Naridon in the Kaura Local Government Area of Kaduna State, in northwestern Nigeria, on Sunday night. They killed at least 30 people, including women and children—eight minors according to Reuters, six from the same family according to local official Yunusa Babados—and set fire to homes and shops, leaving four wounded. No group has claimed responsibility for the massacre. Derek Christopher, president of the South Kaduna Peace and Security Network, recalled that the same community was attacked around this time last year and stated that the government has failed to protect it. Amnesty International strongly condemned the attack. The previous week, more than 20 people had been killed in attacks on several villages in Zamfara State.
Northeastern Nigeria continues to grapple with the insurgency of Boko Haram and its splinter group, the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP). The United States, which has accused the Nigerian government of failing to protect the Christian population—a move that sparked a diplomatic crisis between the two countries—launched an operation on December 25 against suspected members of the Islamic State in Nigerian territory with the cooperation of Abuja, and has deployed military instructors to the country.
Implications
Thirty people murdered in a single night, six children from the same household, and the news hasn’t even warranted a single minute of airtime on European news programs. That’s the true measure of our moral hierarchy. For years, we’ve been demanding in these reports that jihadist barbarity be systematically monitored wherever it occurs, and West Africa is now the global epicenter of Islamist-inspired terrorism, far ahead of any other region.
It is important, however, to maintain analytical rigor and avoid oversimplification. In northwestern Nigeria, at least three distinct phenomena coexist: the pure jihadism of Boko Haram and ISWAP, concentrated in the northeast; armed banditry engaged in kidnapping for ransom, cattle rustling, and extortion of farmers; and a conflict over land and water between pastoral and farming communities, exacerbated year after year by desertification. Conflating these issues neither helps the victims nor allows for the design of an effective response. But neither is the opposite excuse acceptable, so common in certain European press outlets, which consists of reducing everything to a problem of natural resources in order to avoid using the relevant term. When a predominantly Christian village in southern Kaduna is burned and entire families are murdered, there is a religious component that to deny would be a form of complicity.
The diplomatic crisis between Washington and Abuja presents a real dilemma. The US accusation of persecution of Christians is largely true and was necessary; however, the way it has been presented has weakened a Nigerian government that already struggles to control its territory. Pressuring a fragile state to the point of collapse protects no one: it creates another Sahel.
Perspectives and scenarios
Most likely scenario (60%): continued deterioration, with cycles of killings, mass displacements and ad hoc responses from the Nigerian Army without the capacity to sustain territorial control.
Enhanced cooperation scenario (25%): deepening of military and intelligence collaboration between Washington and Abuja following the December operation, with appreciable results against ISWAP but little effect on banditry in the Northwest.
Breakdown scenario (15%): that US pressure on the Christian issue leads to sanctions or suspension of cooperation, with the resulting vacuum that other actors —Moscow and Beijing, as in the Sahel— would rush to fill.
III. MEDIA RACK
Reference Anglo-Saxons.
The Washington Post and Associated Press set the agenda for the day with reports on the progress of mediation between Washington and Tehran, based on two anonymous regional officials, and with accounts of the Kaduna massacre. The main US coverage today focuses on the two White House meetings—Zelensky at 9:30 a.m., Netanyahu at 11:00 a.m.—and the Senate vote on the Graham Bill, unanimously treated as a political tribute to the late senator. The tone is notably subdued: the improved relationship between Trump and Zelensky since the February 2015 clash is emphasized, and any in-depth analysis of the actual effectiveness of the secondary tariffs is avoided. Fox News reported Ambassador Waltz’s statement regarding the room for negotiation and his denial that interceptor stockpiles are critically low, a claim openly disputed by experts.
British and European press.
British media and France 24 have given Zelensky’s visit to Portsmouth a distinctly domestic political treatment: Andy Burnham’s debut in foreign policy, his lack of experience, and the continuity with Keir Starmer. The transfer of the Stone Cloak system is relegated to a secondary position when it should be the headline, because it is the only tangible outcome of the meeting. Regarding industrial defense, FlightGlobal, the French specialist press, and Handelsblatt in Germany maintain the only serious coverage of the consequences of the SCAF collapse; the mainstream European press, including the Spanish press, has turned the page with a flippancy that is difficult to explain. It is telling that the news that Dassault aims for a national demonstrator by 2031 or 2032 has circulated almost exclusively in trade publications.
Gulf and Middle Eastern press.
Abu Dhabi’s The National, Al Bawaba, and the Saudi press have provided the most detailed coverage of the drone attacks, fully reproducing Riyadh’s official position: Iraqi origin, perpetrated by Iranian-affiliated militias, and an explicit reservation of the right to retaliate. Middle East Monitor and Al Jazeera give greater weight to the Houthi claim and the maritime blockade declared on July 20. The Times of Israel offered the most comprehensive overview of the day, linking the drone downings in Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq as a single regional phenomenon; this is the most analytically accurate approach. Press TV, the mouthpiece of the Iranian regime, presented the events as US aggression against Iranian commercial shipping and reproduced the statement from General Khatam al-Anbia denouncing the maritime blockade, without a single mention of the attacks on Abqaiq. Iranwire, on the opposite shore, offered the most precise breakdown of Yahya Sari’s claim.
Ukrainian and Russian press.
Kyiv Post and Ukrainska Pravda had been anticipating the Oval Office meeting for days and detailed the full agenda of the visit, including the afternoon meeting with senators. Ukrainian coverage of the Caspian attack is deliberately brief: the ship’s military cargo is being leaked through the ambassador to Israel, and a formal claim of responsibility is being avoided—a perfectly calculated strategic communications decision. Russian state media, up to the time of this report’s publication, have opted to downplay both the Caspian incident and the scope of the Graham Act.
Asian press.
The South China Morning Post and the regional press highlight the Chinese naval and air patrols in the South China Sea and Beijing’s accusation against Manila for organizing joint patrols with foreign powers, as well as the US and Japanese exercises alongside the Philippines between July 21 and 25. A piece of information that has gone almost unnoticed deserves special attention: China is accelerating the development of land corridors across Central Asia—the China-Kazakhstan-Uzbekistan-Turkmenistan-Afghanistan axis—precisely to circumvent the maritime bottlenecks exposed by the Hormuz crisis. This is exactly what we have been warning about: Beijing never misses an opportunity in someone else’s crisis, and every strait closure translates into another kilometer of railway under Chinese control.
Significant absences.
No major European media outlet has led with Kaduna. None has linked the collapse of the SCAF to Europe’s inability to support Ukraine. And virtually none has dedicated serious analysis to Ahmad Vahidi, despite the fact that he is currently the man who calls the shots in the Gulf. These absences are, in themselves, newsworthy.
IV. RISK TRAFFIC LIGHT
● Persian Gulf and Strait of Hormuz. Maximum risk. The strait remains closed, as expressly acknowledged by Iranian diplomacy itself. The pause in hostilities is tactical and reversible within hours. Attacks against Abqaiq and the Yanbu network occurred during the ceasefire.
● Saudi Arabia and Yemen. Maximum risk. Houthi maritime blockade declared on July 20, attacks on oil tankers in the Red Sea, Saudi bombing of Hodeida and de facto breakdown of the 2022 truce. Diversion of Saudi exports to Suez.
● Iraq as a corridor for militias. Maximum risk. Baghdad does not control its territory; drone attacks launched from Iraqi soil against a neighboring state and against camps of the Iranian-backed Kurdish opposition.
● Ukrainian front and convergence with the Iranian theater. High risk. Attack in the Caspian Sea, Iranian threat of retaliation, vote on the Graham Act, and seven dead in Monday’s Russian bombings in eastern Ukraine.
● Nigeria and West Africa. High risk. Thirty dead in Kaduna, more than twenty the previous week in Zamfara, a consolidated jihadist insurgency in the northeast, and a diplomatic crisis with Washington.
● Succession of power in Tehran. High risk. Increasing militarization of the regime under Vahidi, blocking of the appointment of an intelligence minister and the IRGC’s growing influence over the civilian apparatus.
● South China Sea. Medium-high risk. Chinese patrols, trilateral exercises with the Philippines, incidents at Second Thomas Shoal, and use of water cannons at Scarborough. No immediate escalation, but with a structural tendency toward deterioration.
● European defense and aerospace industry. Medium-high risk. Collapse of the SCAF, triple fragmentation of sixth-generation programs, and Spanish indecisiveness.
● International trade and secondary tariffs. Medium risk. The Graham Act could seriously strain relations with Beijing and New Delhi.
● Bilateral relationship between Washington and Kyiv. Low risk and steadily improving. Joint production of Patriot interceptors, drone agreement in preparation, and bipartisan support in the Senate.
● Relationship between London and Kiev. Low risk. Full continuity after the change in Downing Street and effective technology transfer.
V. EDITORIAL COMMENTARY
There is a thread that connects all the news stories of this day, and it is worth pulling on it until the end.
Let’s start with what hurts the most. While Ukraine—invaded, ruined, and bombed every night—manufactures seven million drones a year and attacks Iranian ships in the Caspian Sea; while Saudi Arabia shoots down swarms of drones over Abqaiq and diverts its crude oil through Suez without a single refinery shutting down; while the US Senate votes on sanctions that could alter the global energy balance, Europe has spent nine years unable to agree on who manufactures an airplane wing. Nine years. One hundred billion euros committed. Zero prototypes. Zero demonstrators. Zero flights. And an explanation that one doesn’t know whether to call shameful or comical: the engineers couldn’t agree on how to divide the work.
This is not an industrial accident. It is a symptom of a political disease we have been diagnosing in these pages for years: a mediocre and short-sighted European ruling class, incapable of taking its own defense, its own security, and its own destiny seriously. A ruling class that has confused the European project with a mechanism for distributing subsidies and that, when the time comes to decide who builds the aircraft that will defend our grandchildren, prefers to protect the quota of a national company rather than the freedom of a continent. One can be a committed European—and we are, without the slightest reservation—and say this outright. In fact, one can only be a true European by saying so.
Spain deserves its own paragraph, and it will not be a flattering one. We joined the program in 2019, we contributed taxpayer money, and today no one can say for sure whether we will retain any relevant role. We are not where the decisions are made because we stopped doing what was necessary to be there long ago. Strategic irrelevance doesn’t fall from the sky: it is painstakingly built, year after year, with unmet defense budgets, a foreign policy without doctrine, and the widespread, yet suicidal, belief that someone will defend us for free. They won’t.
Let us now turn to the Gulf, where the lesson is even more stark. We applauded the attacks against the nuclear and military infrastructure of the ayatollahs’ regime at the time, and we would applaud them again: this is the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism, a jihadist oligarchy that murders its own people and exports death from Beirut to Sana’a, passing through Baghdad. But we warned then, and we repeat it today with even more justification, that striking without a plan for the aftermath is reckless. And here is the result: the visible leadership has been eliminated, and real power has shifted to the uniform. The man who calls the shots in Tehran today is Ahmad Vahidi, a general in the Revolutionary Guard Corps wanted by Interpol for the AMIA bombing, responsible for the 2022 repression, and founder of a school designed to train future Iranian political leaders outside the military. This is what we have called the paradox of the decapitation: the architect is killed, and the foreman rises. The regime has not softened; it has hardened and militarized.
Hence, these days of silence from the guns should not deceive anyone. A ceasefire during which proxy militias attack Abqaiq, Yanbu, Riyadh, Jordan, and the Israeli border is not a ceasefire: it is a war of fluctuating intensity, managed with admirable coldness by those who are not accountable to any electorate. And those in Spain who maintain—and there are some, some with daily platforms—that the Iranian protests were instigated by Mossad and the CIA, or that the repression is an internal matter, are not conducting analysis: they are engaging in propaganda for a regime that hangs protesters from cranes.
Regarding President Trump, we will be both fair and critical today. His foreign policy, when conducted prudently and under the guidance of a Secretary of State of Marco Rubio’s caliber, has yielded diplomatic successes in less than a year that would have taken others a decade: Cambodia and Thailand, Gaza, Azerbaijan, and Armenia. His firmness against drug trafficking and the narco-dictatorships of the hemisphere deserves our unequivocal support. But intuition is not doctrine, and impulsiveness is not strategy. Adding sanctions against Iran at the last minute to a law patiently crafted over months by a senator who has just died, and doing so on the day of his funeral, is precisely the kind of improvisation that can cost a hard-won vote. We trust that the system and the good sense of those surrounding the president will prevail once again. Trust, however, is not a security policy.
And we end up where the world doesn’t want to look. In the village of Naridon, in southern Kaduna, thirty people were murdered in the early hours of Sunday morning. Six children from the same family. Houses and shops burned to the ground. The same community had been attacked a year ago. There was no news coverage, no solemn declaration, no minute of silence in any European parliament. There was, however, a condemnation from Amnesty International and the bitter testimony of a neighbor who asked who is left to fight for them. That question should shame us all.
Because that’s what geopolitics is ultimately about: that some lives matter and some don’t, and that we decide that equation every morning when we choose the headlines. A continent that can’t manufacture a fighter jet, that can’t name the barbarity when it occurs in Africa, and that indulges in debating the sex of angels while Russia wages war two hundred kilometers from Warsaw, is not a serious continent. And continents that aren’t serious don’t usually maintain their prosperity or their freedom for long.
Methodological note: All information gathered in this report has been cross-referenced with agency dispatches and reference media published between July 27 and 28, 2026. The attributions of responsibility—origin of the drones, cargo of the ship attacked in the Caspian Sea, perpetrators of the Kaduna massacre—are presented as formulated by official sources or cited witnesses, and not as independently established facts. The probabilities assigned to the scenarios are the author’s analytical estimates.